Maya Khankhoje had the privilege of viewing this film last Christmas in Delhi in the company of the filmmakers and activists

WORDS ON WATER. Written and directed by Sanjay Kak. Documentary/Video/Colour/85 mins/2002/English/Hindi (subtitled)

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Who gives a damn! The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) people do. So do the Friends of the River Narmada International Coalition. And most importantly, the 320,000 people who will be displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Dam [the largest one in the Narmada Project involving the construction of 30 large, 135 medium-sized and 3000 small dams in Gujarat and other parts of Central India] and the millions of people who will be adversely affected by this mega dam project sponsored by the World Bank and the Central Government of India.

The purported aim of the Narmada Valley Project is noble: to control drought in Gujarat and to provide hydroelectricity to Central India. However, the opponents of this project firmly sustain that it is iniquitous, that it is based on unfounded hydrological and seismic assumptions, that it involves a large scale abuse of human rights, that alternative technologies would provide better cost/benefit results, that its effects on the riverine system will be devastating and last but not least, that it unfairly punishes the poor and underprivileged who will be resettled without just compensation and rehabilitation.

"From being a fight over the fate of a river valley, the struggle against big dams in the Narmada Valley has begun to raise doubts about an entire political system. What is at issue now is the very nature of India's democracy. Who owns this land? Who owns its rivers? Its forests? Its fish?"

From "The Greater Common Good"/ Arundhati Roy.

Words on Water is a moving documentary about the defiance, courage and conviction of the people of the valley who for more than 15 years have resisted a series of massive dams on the river and in their struggle have exposed the deceptive heart of India's development politics.

The documentary, filmed over a period of two years, after the Supreme Court of India had lifted a stay on the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, starts with a boatload of people who began a journey of satyagraha -non violent protest- and culminates with an impressive fleet of sailboats that pays tribute to the people's joyous defiance of a model of development that favours large dams with large budgets & large profits for small groups of people.

"At a more abstract level, the questions that arise in the Narmada Struggle challenge the dominant model of development ... that holds out the chimeral promise of material wealth through modernisation but perpetuates an iniquitous distribution of resources and wreaks social and environmental havoc".

From: Friends of the River Narmada International Coalition Web Site.

The heroes of this film are the Adivasis, or hill tribes, the farmers from the Nimad plain, sand-quarriers and fishermen on the river, and middle-class activists such as Medha Patkar, a tenacious leader whose grey hair belies her energy and courage, as well as intellectuals like writer Arundhati Roy, who was one of many people imprisoned for their impassioned defence of this cause. The film-making crew were also heroes: Sanjay Kak, Sameera Jain, Reena Mohan, Ranjan Palit, Samina Mishra, Rahul Ram, Amit Kilam and Asheem Chakravarty who, with their courage in sharing the risks faced by the subjects of their documentary and their combined skills, produced not only an eloquent advocacy film but also a work of lyrical beauty. The villains are the ministers, magistrates, police commissioners, the World Bank, and in this era of privatization, the CEO’s of multinational corporations who stand to gain a lot from such gargantuan projects.

Words on Water is a documentary whose message will never dissolve in our memory since it invokes the power of grassroots movements in India, and by extension, in the rest of the world, and also appeals to our senses and our primeval longing to be one with the river of life that will ultimately carry us to the sea of eternity.

The pictures to the right are production stills taken from the film.